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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24461338">Let This Be Your Mausoleum</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naidhe/pseuds/Naidhe'>Naidhe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dead!Voldemort, F/M, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Unhappy Ending, wizarding war au</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 00:54:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,574</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24461338</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naidhe/pseuds/Naidhe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Voldemort falling did not end the Death Eaters. Harry Potter dying did not deter the Order. Hermione Granger leads the latter under the banner of justice. Theodore Nott climbs the former with the ruthlessness of a predator. And as years of war go by, they come to a painful realization.</p>
<p>In the end, only one can survive.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Theodore Nott</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>75</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>HP UnHappily Ever After Fest 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Let This Be Your Mausoleum</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was a quiet night. Unexpectedly starry, given the usual weather, but otherwise unremarkable. A lone, dilapidated, two-storey house stood creaking against the wind and, with every gust, it threatened to crumble. Hermione Granger could have told you it was placed about four miles north of Daventry, but she wouldn't have – she'd taken great care to make its location unplottable.</p>
<p>One of the windows on the second floor was open, its shutters flailing uselessly, one of them barely holding onto its hinges. Hermione Granger herself stood against the window sill, overlooking the empty grounds. She was feeling restless, a mixture of dread and anticipation – it wasn't unusual, despite how often she visited the place.</p>
<p>She heard the footsteps coming up the stairs, but made no outward show of it. There was only one other person in the world who knew how to find that house – and not even him would have been able to draw its location on a map.</p>
<p>"Looking at the stars?" he asked in a soft, vaguely mocking voice.</p>
<p>"Theo," she said, turning to look at him. "You're late."</p>
<p>Theodore Nott, the young man who'd just come into the room, bowed with rehearsed theatricality. "Every moment away from you is a moment spent being late."</p>
<p>Hermione sighed, too used to his flowery words to be bothered, or moved, by them. "You could have been <em>dead</em>," she said, reproachful.</p>
<p>"Indeed, I could – We were ambushed by a swarm of Order members right outside Hogwarts grounds," he told her casually. "Ah, but," he added, mouth breaking into a twisted grin, "you already knew that, didn't you, dear?"</p>
<p>Hermione didn't answer. She leaned back against the window frame and looked him up and down. His robes were singed and dirtied on the left side, his boots were muddy, and there was no sign of a cloak. For a man who prided himself in always looking impeccable, this was a shameful appearance.</p>
<p>Theodore walked slowly toward her as he asked, "how did you know?"</p>
<p>Hermione met him halfway after taking a couple quick, impulsive steps. She took his face between her hands and caressed a streak of dry blood against his cheek. She found no wound – it wasn't his. She briefly wondered which of her friends it belonged to.</p>
<p>"How did you know?" he insisted, raising his own hands toward his face and taking her hands into his own. "That we'd be there tonight?"</p>
<p>Hermione let out an amused breath. "Who says it was me?"</p>
<p>Theodore made a mockery of pursing his lips and pretending to think. "Well… It was completely unexpected," he enumerated by raising one finger, "highly efficient," he raised a second, "and possibly devastating to my career," he finished with a third.</p>
<p>"A tragic blow, I'm sure," she said dryly.</p>
<p>Theodore laughed as he leaned in to kiss her. He carefully brushed his lips with her own in a soft welcome before burying his fingers in her hair and bringing her closer. They kissed with the slow, savouring passion of having missed the other for two weeks. And mid-war, two weeks was a terribly long time.</p>
<p>"Did you know I'd be there?" he asked her after a brief pause.</p>
<p>"I thought you might," she admitted as Theodore dropped his head to lay a kiss right under her jaw.</p>
<p>Years before this conversation took place, a younger Hermione Granger might have felt shame at this admission. The older, jaded Hermione Granger knew Theodore would have done the exact same, were their positions reversed. In fact, she strongly suspected he might have done worse.</p>
<p>"Well, your ingenious ploy certainly delivered," he told her, an amused smirk curving his lips. "Dolohov is dead."</p>
<p>Theodore's eyes shone with so much glee a bystander might have mistaken his true alliances. Hermione knew better, but she still allowed herself to participate in his merriment – there weren't many opportunities for her to share his joys. And Antonin Dolohov going down was certainly something she could appreciate.</p>
<p>She laid a kiss against his clothed chest in silent congratulations. Theodore's hand sank into her curls and casually massaged her nape, engrossed in their conversation.</p>
<p>"Weasley took him down," he went on, "don't ask which one. I wouldn't know."</p>
<p>Hermione, who had schemed every last detail of that particular operation, knew him to be Fred. She didn't say so, though, because Theodore Nott had the uncanny ability to use every bit of information to his favour – and, inevitably, to everyone else's demise.</p>
<p>She took a step back, sensing an incoming souring of the conversation. Theodore's arms fell to his sides as they looked at each other, separated by a distance both physical and emotional. They shared joys, few as they were, never lasted long. They always gave way to the differences.</p>
<p>"Will it be you, then?" she asked, dreading the answer. "Taking his place in the Wizengamot?"</p>
<p>Theodore had been aiming for a seat since the old council had been dismissed to be replaced by the remains of the Inner Circle: the twelve Death Eaters with the highest standing in the post-Voldemort era. Corban Yaxley, Rodolphus Lestrange, Thorfinn Rowle, Albert Runcorn, Walden McNair, Ivor Mulciber, Augustus Rookwood, Godwin Montague, Verbena Orpington, Jasper Dawlish and Antonin Dolohov.</p>
<p>The Order Headquarters had a wall covered with their pictures, which Fred and George had helpfully titled The Twelve Twats. They used it to organize periodic dart competitions, which Hermione never joined – terrible aim. Ron had won the last bout, she thought.</p>
<p>Theodore shrugged. "Who else?"</p>
<p>Hermione wasn't fooled by the aloofness. Theodore Nott was an ambitious man. He had been at sixteen, and the passage of ten years had only heightened that trait. The youngest member of The Twelve – he must be pleased.</p>
<p>She felt her stomach churn at the thought of the man she loved peering at her amongst those dreadful, snarling Death Eaters. She turned away from him and placed her hands on the windowsill, firmly fixing her sight on the stars.</p>
<p>Theodore Nott was pleased, and Hermione Granger most definitely wasn't.</p>
<p>Lestrange, Rowle and McNair were dim-witted on their best days. Yaxley, Runcorn and Orpington were dangerous, but their knowledge on muggle ways and guerrilla warfare was limited and marred with prejudice. Mulciber and Rookwood were unlikely to involve themselves with Order business – they had always been in charge of the baser Ministry functions. The rest, from Montague to Dolohov, had been wizards of <em>action</em>. Brute force and not complex strategy.</p>
<p>But Theodore… Theodore was <em>smart</em>.</p>
<p>Theodore could lose Hermione that war.</p>
<p>"Jugson messed up in Glasgow last year," Theodore elaborated. "And you know they'll never trust Malfoy again."</p>
<p>Hermione nodded. She'd ruined the meeting between Jugson and the Russian ambassador herself. Theodore had been there – assisting Jugson at the time – but he'd managed to sneak through the cracks of that diplomatic mess. Hermione suspected he'd been the one to leak the information in the first place; it reeked of opportunism.</p>
<p>Theodore went quiet and, for a minute, only the creaking of the house was heard over the sound of their breathing. He finally moved to stand behind her back, placing his hands on her side, comforting.</p>
<p>"I'm sorry," he said, breaking her inner turmoil. "We don't have a lot of time – let's talk about something else."</p>
<p>Hermione smiled sadly. "It's hard to talk about anything else, these days," she said. "It used to be easier, remember? When you'd just been marked. When I was still not allowed in most Order meetings."</p>
<p>They'd talked about magic, back in the day. About inventing spells and calculating the future through the almost objective eye of arithmancy. About their shared passion for runes and History, about how one could twist Mermish into Gobbledegook through a couple runic transmutations. About muggle science and transport and habits and about men walking on the moon.</p>
<p>"It was," Theodore agreed. "Mere foot soldiers in a battle that wasn't fully ours."</p>
<p>Hermione let her head fall against his chest, still gazing into the quiet night. She inhaled the faint scent of citrus and ginger that clung to his robes, and she felt right at home. A home she visited once every two weeks and left after rushed love-making, tainted with the memories of empty promises and lost hope.</p>
<p>"Hopeful still," she reminded him, "that we would make it work someday."</p>
<p>Theodore snorted. "Delusional," he corrected her. "Children grasping at straws."</p>
<p>They had been happy, though, in their delusion. They had grasped at the same straws, at the very least.</p>
<p>"Is that what you believe?" she asked, never betraying what she thought herself. "That we were doomed from the start?"</p>
<p>Theodore contemplated her question quietly. His hands travelled the skin under her shirt with a familiarity that was never devoid of passion.</p>
<p>"From the moment I was marked," he said. "No matter which side wins, it's either death or Azkaban for one of us."</p>
<p>Hermione interlocked her fingers with his, resting their hands on her midsection. He was right, of course. They could never come out of the war together. As soon as a side won, they would lose each other. And the war could not go on eternally.</p>
<p>"Maybe we should have eloped," she said wishfully.</p>
<p>"That could have worked," he conceded.</p>
<p>But they both knew it to be untrue. Despite their mutual attraction, despite the trust and the affection and the – dare I say it – love, Theodore Nott and Hermione Granger were fundamentally different people.</p>
<p>Hermione Granger would have never been able to abandon her best friends to their fate. She would have never been able to happily settle down abroad while the streets of wizarding Britain were covered in blood – <em>mud</em>blood; the blood of her people. She would have never been able to forget the Order dying as it fought for justice. For a justice she fully believed in.</p>
<p>Likewise, Theodore Nott would not have endured a nameless exile. To be perfectly honest, he wouldn't care who won the war if it weren't for the fact he was irrevocably tied to one side. His Mark, his family history and his obvious lack of scruples wouldn't have let him go far with the Order lot. And oh, Theodore Nott wished to go far. Snape had shown him that a life of espionage was hardly ever rewarded and so, without the option to switch sides, he could only climb up.</p>
<p>And climb he did.</p>
<p>"Looking back, sixth year was <em>blissful</em>," Hermione went on, content with pretending elopement had actually been a possibility. Content with ignoring that the man clinging to her back loved power just as much as he loved her.</p>
<p>Theodore laughed softly, warmly. "I could hardly keep my eyes off you," he admitted. "I still can't believe I had the guts to talk to you."</p>
<p>"That was me," said Hermione with a frown, as she turned around. "I spoke to you first. And our Runes project would have never finished itself if I hadn't dared start the conversation."</p>
<p>Theodore cupped her face with his hands and gave her a heart wrenching smile. "It took guts to answer," he said. "You made me stupidly shy."</p>
<p>"For the whole of two hours," she said with a laugh. "I quite remember mostly boldness after that."</p>
<p>Theodore sighed. "A poor attempt at <em>bravado</em>," he said with regret, "which I was lead to believe would work on Gryffindor girls."</p>
<p>"It was more a mix between mockery and self-deprecation, as I remember it," Hermione corrected him. "You're lucky you're handsome enough, and I missed most of it while staring at your lips."</p>
<p>Theodore laughed. It was a deep, handsome sound that echoed through the empty house and filled Hermione up with joy. It had been way too long, she though, since any of them had last laughed.</p>
<p>"Worked well enough," Theodore said with a shrug. "Got me the girl in the end."</p>
<p>Hermione laughed and sank her hands in his hair, bringing him closer and into a deep kiss, biting on his lower lip and then licking the pain away.</p>
<p>They never bothered indulging in all that senseless nostalgia. When they met, which was not as frequently as they wished, they were driven by passion. He would tug at her hair and hastily rip at her clothes and forget the horrors of war in the sound of her moans. She would claw at her back and bite along the line of his jaw and whisper his name with the desperation of one who knows it might be the last time the sounds left her lips.</p>
<p>By this point, Theodore would have her on her knees, coercing her warm mouth on himself, enjoying the short moment of power he was allowed to have over the most feared witch of the Order. By this point, Hermione would be enjoying the shivers and grunts only she could elicit from the taciturn, ruthless man who'd climbed his way to the top of the Death Eaters through cunning and betrayal.</p>
<p>In normal circumstances, Hermione would be splayed on the ground as he roughly made love to her – all limbs and hands and lips. Any other day, Theodore would enjoy thrusting into her as he watched her squirm and gasp and scratch against the worn wooden floor of their refuge. And on most days, he would be suddenly overpowered, pushed against the wood, and madly ridden in a frenzy of heat and hunger.</p>
<p>That day was not a normal day.</p>
<p>And Theodore Nott turned out to have just about enough decency – or perhaps it was respect for the woman he, in his own words, loved – to not do any of that. Given what was about to happen, Hermione Granger would have rather agreed it'd have been in poor taste.</p>
<p>Instead, he took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply, slowly, as if trying to commit the shape of her lips and the warmth of her tongue and the sound of her breath to memory. Hermione returned the tender embrace, but a frown marred her features. Why the slowness? Why the affection? They never had time to indulge on those for too long, if they wanted to make the most of their time together.</p>
<p>She pushed gently against his chest and gained enough distance to look into his eyes. "Theo?" she asked.</p>
<p>He knew he had to seize the opportunity. Now or never.</p>
<p>With a swift jerk he pulled her wand out of the pocket of her coat and <em>accioed</em> the second and third wands – one tucked inside her boot, the other hidden within her belt. He grabbed them both and raised her own wand to her. It had always worked well for him, and even though he could feel the slightest hesitation coming from it, he knew it was not enough to disobey him.</p>
<p>Hermione didn't look half as shocked as he'd expected. Perhaps, he would reflect later, everything would have been easier if she'd looked shocked.</p>
<p>"So, the time has come," Hermione said with a resigned tone that did not match the hardness in her eyes.</p>
<p>Her face was a perfect placid mask; as if waiting for Death to come was just another item in her never-ending to-do list, and she'd just rather be done with it. As if she'd always known her death would come at his hands, and it'd just been a matter of knowing when.</p>
<p>The thought bothered Theodore a bit more than he was willing to admit.</p>
<p>The war could not last forever, Theodore told himself – one side must win. One of them must win, even when it meant death for the other. And Theodore Nott was ready to win. What he needed the most was for a change – a big, favourable one – to come forth right after his ascension to the Wizengamot. And if Hermione was no more, the Order of the Phoenix could not keep up with his shrewd ploys. His ascension would perfectly align with the fall of the Order.</p>
<p>"I'll make it painless," he promised.</p>
<p>Hermione did not have time to answer. She'd managed a sceptical eyebrow raise and the ghost of a mocking snort left her lips when the green light impacted her chest and took her life away.</p>
<p>In retrospective, it was not the most flattering expression. Theodore stood overlooking her body and felt a tinge of uneasiness at the disdainful grimace now forever imprinted on her face. 'How very kind of you,' it seemed to deride, 'to make your betrayal <em>painless</em>.'</p>
<p>It struck him as bizarre how he'd always pictured the dead looking peaceful.</p>
<p>He briefly thought about the inappropriateness of leaving Hermione there, in the open, without anyone to properly mourn her, without a tomb for her loved ones to visit. Hermione had been the one to find the house, the one to enchant it so that only him could find it – so that it would be their secret, forever.</p>
<p><em>Let this be her mausoleum</em>, he thought. Known only to him. For him to think about and grieve, for him to visit in the privacy of his mind, the only place where he could admit that he'd once loved her. That, perhaps, he'd always love her.</p>
<p>He turned without another look back. Hermione was gone. He had no wish to preserve an empty body – the wonder that had been her existence would live on in his memories. He went down the stairs with renewed determination, focused on what was ahead and not on what laid behind.</p>
<p>He turned at the foot of the stairs and walked to the door. There, he allowed himself one last, wistful look – one last longing what-if – before moving to turn the doorknob. That last look around turned out to be a mistake.</p>
<p>Because there, standing at the foot of the stairs, was Hermione.</p>
<p>Theodore's heart wrenched painfully against his chest, half struck by anguish and half by surprise. He had killed her. She'd fallen right in front of his eyes, all liveliness gone – the green light unforgiving. She couldn't possibly be alive.</p>
<p>To be perfectly honest, <em>standing</em> was a terribly inaccurate word to apply to the occasion. Hermione Granger <em>hovered</em> near the foot of the stairs, looking as composedly peaceful as Theodore had expected of her inert body. Only, this body wasn't inert at all.</p>
<p>She was wearing, he noticed, different clothes – red robes she'd worn on a night they had made love outside, under the flickering light of the stars.</p>
<p>"So," she said again, "the time has come."</p>
<p>And Theodore understood all at once why Hermione hadn't looked shocked at all.</p>
<p>"You knew," he said in a ragged whisper. "How could you know?"</p>
<p>The false Hermione – too floaty, too ethereal to be real; and yet much too solid to be a ghost – gave no indication that she'd heard him. Possibly, Theodore said to himself, she wasn't sentient enough to do so.</p>
<p>"You know," she said conversationally, "I did consider letting you win." She gave him a sad, loving smile. "Self-sacrificing idiocy, you would have called it."</p>
<p>Theodore felt trepidation slowly creep into him, taking a hold of his fumbling thoughts. She had known, he couldn't help but think, she had known all along that she'd find her end at the tip of his wand.</p>
<p>The silence stretched between them. Hermione's apparition spoke on, like a recorded message. Like a last, personified will.</p>
<p>"But I couldn't," Hermione confessed. "I <em>can't</em> let you destroy the Order."</p>
<p><em>Hermione had been the one to find the house</em>, Theodore repeated to himself with increasing dread, <em>the one to enchant it</em>.</p>
<p>"No," he whispered with a disbelieving shake of his head. "You couldn't have –"</p>
<p>But, he realized, of course she could. Hermione Granger had taken the reins of the Order of the Phoenix and rebirthed it from its ashes, made it into the flaming demon it was today. Hermione Granger; the only one who could match his wits, see through his strategies, strike at his weaknesses.</p>
<p>The only person that stood between himself and utter victory.</p>
<p>"I understand why you did it," she admitted, her calm now unnerving instead of serene. "I know you. I can read you, I can predict you – I can defeat you."</p>
<p>Of course, not even in the privacy of their love affair, had he once fooled her.</p>
<p>"Without me, leadership falls to people unprepared to deal with you." Memory-Hermione shrugged. "I should even out the field, don't you think?"</p>
<p>"No," Theodore begged. But Hermione wasn't there anymore to listen to his pleas, and her simile wasn't programmed to show mercy.</p>
<p>Theodore turned and shook the doorknob forcefully.</p>
<p>"So," she said for the third time, "the time has come."</p>
<p>The door was locked.</p>
<hr/>
<p>It was a quiet night. Unexpectedly starry, given the usual weather, but otherwise unremarkable. A lone, dilapidated, two-storey house stood creaking against the wind and, with every gust, it threatened to crumble. Hermione Granger could once have told you it was placed about four miles north of Daventry, but she wouldn't now – she was dead.</p>
<p>One of the windows on the second floor was open, its shutters flailing uselessly, one of them barely holding onto its hinges. Through its glass shone the lights of spells, colourful and shifting – moving from upstairs to downstairs as Theodore Nott tried every window, every creaky slab of wood, and every hinge of the door.</p>
<p>There was only one other person in the world who knew how to find that house – not that it really mattered, given how he was already inside.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Original prompt:</p>
<p>"In the end, only one can survive."<br/>Couple must be MADLY in love and one of them has to kill the other and knowingly and willingly do it. Can not be the result of a spell/potion OR sacrifice making them do it. It must be willing!</p>
<p>Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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